The Drum Beat 446 - Trends in Impact Evaluation of C4D [Part 2]

This is the second in a series of 3 Drum Beats focusing on World Bank Working Paper (#120), published in June 2007, "Communicating the Impact of Communication for Development: Recent Trends in Empirical Research" by Nobuya Inagaki. The study is a survey of empirical research on communication for development based on a sample of peer-reviewed English-language articles from academic journals published between 2000 and 2005. The purpose of the analysis was to collect evidence from peer-reviewed academic research to highlight the impacts of communication on development initiatives and to present current trends in theoretical underpinnings and communication approaches.

Below we present excerpts from the study, focusing on Chapters 1-4, looking at theory, trends, and evidence. Part 3 of this series will focus on Chapters 5 and 6, looking at discussion of the trends and evidence and presenting conclusions. The first issue of this Drum Beat series reviewed the studies that served as background evidence for Mr. Inagaki's analysis; you may view the archived version of the first part online - click here.

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Please note: The Communication Initiative (CI) worked with Mr. Inagaki in designing the research approach and supporting the research that was the background for the paper. The conclusions within the paper are Mr. Inagaki's and are not necessarily representative of The CI or the Partners of The CI.

You may download a PDF version of the full study - click here.

You may download a plain text version of the full study - click here.

Also note: footnotes and internal references have been removed from the below excerpts. For the full text, including references, please see the full study.

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DEBATE!

This issue of The Drum Beat will serve as the starting point for a discussion among the Drum Beat Chat network of this World Bank Working Paper (#120), "Communicating the Impact of Communication for Development: Recent Trends in Empirical Research" by Nobuya Inagaki.

Please register (if you are not already registered) and engage in dialogue, beginning June 10th, through the DrumBeatChat forum: click here for the archives. Register, and either participate online or send your contributions via email to drumbeatchat@comminit.com (you must be registered to participate). If connectivity is an issue for you, you may also send your contact information via email to the moderator, Deborah Heimann - dheimann@comminit.com - who can assist you with the registration process.

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Communicating the Impact of Communication for Development: Recent Trends in Empirical Research
World Bank Working Paper #120
by Nobuya Inagaki

EXCERPTS [Chapters 1-4]:

Chapter 1 - Introduction

This paper surveys empirical studies published in academic journals in the last five years that demonstrate the impact of communication for development. It highlights theoretical underpinnings, communication approaches and techniques, and outstanding evidence of communication's impact presented in these studies....

[T]he volume of research work published in academic journals is considerably smaller than those published or circulated in "grey" publications and conferences/meetings. One important factor contributing to the relatively small volume of development communication work in academic journals is the lack of a dedicated journal or set of journals specializing in the field. [Footnote: Two important exceptions are the Journal of Health Communication (published by Taylor & Francis), though limited to health communication issues, and the Journal of Development Communication (published by the Asian Institute for Development Communication), which has a relatively small circulation.] As a result, research efforts in development communication seek outlets in journals associated with a variety of related disciplines (for example, development studies, communications, health, sociology, anthropology, environmental studies, and so forth). This is not surprising given the highly interdisciplinary nature of the field. At the same time, the situation is not ideal for the purpose of systematically accumulating evidence. Decisionmakers, and even the development communication specialists themselves, are not provided with tightly defined institutional resources to look up the impacts of communication for development.... [p. 3]

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Chapter 2 - Theoretical Models in Communication for Development

Whether explicitly acknowledged or not, the majority of empirical research work in development communication is theory based. Theoretical underpinnings define and limit the types of communication channels to employ, the scales of communication initiatives, the intended goals, and a number of other aspects of communication interventions in development settings. However, models and theories of development communication have undergone major shifts in the last fifty years. The theoretical shifts did not follow a simple unilinear evolution, where a new theory would replace an old one, but was characterized by parallel development and convergence of divergent approaches.... [p. 5]

[Main theories covered in this chapter include: modernization paradigm; diffusion of innovations; and various participatory approaches.] [pps. 5-8]

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Chapter 3 - Trends in Recent Research: Paradigmatic and Theoretical Underpinnings of Empirical Research

Paradigmatic and Theoretical Underpinnings of Empirical Research

[Paradigms/Theories studied and exemplified in this section include: modernization paradigm; diffusion of innovations; and participatory approach.] [pps. 9-14]

Trends in Communication Approaches and Techniques

Contemporary development communication specialists and organizations are presented with a multitude of communication approaches and techniques that they can adopt to pursue specific programmatic goals. Some of the most widely used communication strategies include: entertainment-education; social marketing; peer education; interpersonal communication involving peers, marital partners and service providers; group communication; community actions; media advocacy; and listening to indigenous knowledge. Most of these methods are not only theory-based themselves but also have affinities with the three major theoretical traditions in development communication just discussed.... [p. 14]

The communication strategies assessed in the reviewed studies can be classified into 9 groups. This section highlights the characteristic ways in which the 3 most widely used groups of strategies - interpersonal communication, entertainment-education/social marketing, and group communication - were implemented in the field, as documented by the reviewed studies.... [p. 15]

Interpersonal Communication

The most prevalent communication method evaluated by the reviewed studies is interpersonal communication, taken up in 19 studies. Interpersonal communication is a broad category of intervention strategies encompassing several formal and informal communication activities, including spousal communication, client-provider communication, peer-to-peer communication, among others....

Interpersonal communication appears to be an important programmatic tool for communication interventions drawing on the diffusion of innovations and participatory-approach traditions. All diffusion studies in our sample assessed the impacts of interpersonal communication on the project outcomes, consistent with the diffusion theory's emphasis on the importance of interpersonal communication in a diffusion process....

Interpersonal communication is widely used also in communication interventions incorporating participatory approaches. However, the expected function of interpersonal communication in project design seems very distinct in participatory development communication. Projects based on the diffusion theory in our sample primarily valued the ability of interpersonal communication to re-transmit externally generated information. In contrast, interpersonal communication in participatory programs appears to be designed not only as a means to pass on information produced by experts and non-local actors but also as a mechanism to generate new practices and knowledge. [pps. 15-16]

Entertainment Education and Social Marketing

The studies in our sample also deal with a large number of entertainment education and social marketing programs. Entertainment education and social marketing are techniques typically associated with modernization/diffusion interventions. Our sample is consistent with this observation. ...[T]hese two communication techniques are particularly favored in communication interventions subscribing to the modernization and diffusion theories; those projects guided by the participatory approach and alternative theories exploit entertainment-education and social marketing techniques much less frequently.... [p. 17]

Group Communication

Group communication is a form of interpersonal communication and takes place in settings where people engage in discussion on matters of collective or communal importance. Communication dynamics of group communication is arguably even more horizontal than in simple interpersonal communication for it often calls for a participation of people with varying socio-economic backgrounds, expertise and power. [pps. 17-18]

Not surprisingly, group communication is entirely absent in interventions built on the modernization paradigm. Further, group communication rarely found its way in those development projects influenced by the diffusion approach.... In contrast, group communication seems to be a prevalent strategy among participatory communication projects.... [p. 18]

...[G]roup communication in participatory interventions is not simply a channel for amplifying existing campaign messages, but, in addition, a space for people with different social and cultural backgrounds to debate and generate local solutions to the identified problems. Although the tangible and intangible positive outcomes summarized above are encouraging, researchers acknowledge the limits of participatory group communication imposed by larger social conditions. "One key criticism of participatory projects is that they can all too easily assume a homogeneous 'community' within which events take place, while ignoring the exclusion, or under-representation, of certain groups..." [p. 21]

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Chapter 4 - Evidence of the Impacts of Communication for Development

This chapter presents some outstanding evidence of communication for development produced in recent empirical literature in 2 directions: the types of programmatic outcomes and the impacts of integrated communication strategies.... [p. 23]

Impacts of Communication by the Types of Outcome

The review of empirical studies in our sample identified 5 types of intervention outcomes [behavior change, change in knowledge and attitude, empowerment and capability building, coalition building and partnership, and resource development]. In communication interventions, the "successful" outcome is measured in 2 ways, although evaluation studies may or may not elaborate both. One kind involves the examination of the extent to which the target populations adopt, in a broad sense, the communication practices that are promoted.... The second type of successful outcome consists of changes, as the result of communication interventions, amounting to the realization of specific programmatic goals, such as a reduction in HIV prevalence.... [pps. 23-24]

Evidence of Behavior Change

The hallmark of development communication intervention is the explicit and implicit desire to change the way people behave. The role of communication experts is to design and implement a communication message or system of information flows that would trigger reactions leading to the adoption of desirable behavioral patterns. The empirical studies in our sample document a variety of evidence of instances in which communication provoked changes in people's practices.... [p. 24]

A fair number of studies offer straightforward assessments, measuring the one-to-one correspondence between an intervention and resulting changes.... The majority of empirical investigations on behavior change effects of communication focus on media-based, vertical mode of communication. However, changing people's behavior is also possible through alternative modes of communication.... [pps. 24-25]

The list of the evidence of behavior change effects is long. Some of the illustrative examples include:

• 22 percent of the respondents reported that they had adopted family planning as a result of listening to the radio soap opera.
• Exposure to contraceptive use media campaigns had stronger influence on the contraceptive use among younger, urban, and/or more educated women than did other factors such as the availability of contraceptive choice, distance to family planning services, and types of family planning services available.
• The use of modern contraception was much higher among participants in the social network approach (horizontal communication) than among women who had household visits by family planning field workers (more top-down communication).
• After health providers began using the decisionmaking tool (communication aid), they gave clients more information on family planning, tailored information more closely to clients' situations, and discussed HIV/AIDS prevention techniques more frequently.
• Three years into a participatory forest management project, about 50 percent of all farms in the district planted trees supporting local reforestation efforts and the timber economy....

[p. 25]

Evidence of Impacts on Knowledge and Attitude

People do not robotically change their behavior simply by being told to do so. Nearly three-quarters of the "behavior change" studies in our sample crossover with the evaluations examining impacts on knowledge and attitudes, implying logical and sequential relationships between these types of changes.... [pps. 25-26]

People's belief system is a product of complex social, cultural and psychological processes in which, in development intervention settings, the familiar and unfamiliar, and indigenous and foreign belief models are contested and negotiated.... [p. 26]

Changes in knowledge and attitude are presumably easier to invoke in technical domains than in culturally-rooted practices. In the empirical studies in our sample, very little of the former type of attempts are analyzed or discussed. But some of the studies show experiences of the co-construction of interventions aimed at the changes in knowledge and attitude at administrative or technical levels.... [p. 27]

Empowerment and Capability Building

Prototypical development communication interventions based on vertical message transmission are designed to trigger behavioral and attitudinal changes at the individual-level. However, the studies in our sample include evidence of larger social changes, beyond individual effects, prompted by mass media and other communication processes....

• A study of entertainment-education programs on family planning in Nepal demonstrates, among other things, that the interaction between mass media messages and spousal communication has lead to the empowerment of women in the context of spousal relations....
• A communication intervention in Nepal addressed a range of child-birth health issues. The intervention heavily utilized participatory group communication strategy.... Tangible outcomes of the intervention included a dramatic drop in neonatal mortality (30 percent) and maternal mortality (80 percent), attributable to the adoption of healthier practices among women who participated the project [sic] and those who were cared for by these participants....
• [T]he Soul City entertainment-education initiative in South Africa produced multiple community empowerment processes around the issues of domestic violence, HIV/AIDS and community life.
• [A]n Indian case study of the effects of an entertainment-education radio soap opera on village life found that mass media not only had individual-level effects but also activated community-level processes leading to mobilizations against various problems in the village.... Community-level outcomes encompassed a greater awareness of social problems deriving from gender inequality, a series of community actions addressing pollution and environmental hazards, and the establishment of a school for children....

[pps. 27-28]

Coalition Building and Partnership

Contemporary overseas development interventions are not just limited to the traditional resource input model in which financial and technological resources of the industrialized world are transferred to the resource-stricken developing countries. One of the more recent foci has been the agglomeration of local and domestic capabilities for development through coalitions and partnerships among groups and individuals.... [p. 29]

The participatory approach is often the preferred mode of implementing development projects aimed at creating and strengthening coalitions and collaborative partnerships. In our sample, all but one of the eight communication interventions for coalition-building employed participatory strategies. However, we should be reminded that participation of broad stakeholder groups in dialogues by no means guarantees the realization of a robust coalition.... [pps. 29-30]

Resource Development

Finally, some of the studies in our sample assessed the interaction between communication interventions and the creation of tangible resources. The resources created during intervention processes are intended to improve the lives of people [and as noted in this paper, often do], but such resources under certain circumstances can adversely affect the intended beneficiaries.... [pps. 30-31]

The sheer diversity of the project goals, implementation methods, communication approaches and project contexts precludes any meaningful generalizations about the impacts of communication for development from this short review. In lieu of such an exercise, a few limited characterizations and speculations are offered here.

• Interests in induced changes in behaviors, attitudes and knowledge seem theory-blind; all 3 major theoretical traditions (the modernization theory, the diffusion theory and the participatory approach) are equally represented in the projects aimed at these programmatic goals.
• In contrast, the latter three types of goals - empowerment and capability building, coalition building and partnership, and resource creation - clearly indicate affinities with theoretical models other than the modernization theory and the diffusion theory. With only 2 exceptions, none of the modernization or diffusion projects adequately explored these development goals.
• Individual-level changes (behavioral and attitudinal effects) are much more heavily investigated than the effects amounting to changes at the communal or collective level....

[pps. 31-32]

Impacts of Integrated Communication Strategies

A number of projects implemented multiple communication strategies... The use of integrated communication techniques raises a question: Which combination of strategies bring about more/less desirable outcomes? This is, unfortunately, an unanswerable question. The absence of standardized ways of measuring communications effects (whose usefulness, even if they exist, is questionable) and the sheer diversity of cultural, geographical and political-economic contexts of interventions preclude such an attempt. Instead, the goal here is to conduct a brief survey of integrated communication designs and their outcomes, with a view that these studies potentially suggest new directions of research and communication interventions.... [p. 32]

Important implications seem to emerge by reflecting on the assessments and findings on integrated communication strategies.... [A]t least three lessons manifest. First, communication techniques are not neutral; some techniques and communication channels work better than others under different circumstances. Mass media messages effectively contributed to the adoption of new behavior and attitudinal models, as posited by the original modernization theorists, in certain situations, but this communication model was found ineffective in comparison to different communication models under other conditions (e.g., interpersonal communication). Second, making the latter point more complex, general categories such as mass media and interpersonal communication can potentially conceal varying effects among specific channels within each mode, such as one-to-one interpersonal contacts versus group discussion, broadcast media versus printed materials. Third, different communication channels interact with one another, and this interaction can form a complex network of communication effects encompassing multiple, direct and indirect paths of influence. When measured alone a mass media message may have negligible direct impacts, but the same message can have significantly greater impacts when mediated through other channels of communication, such as interpersonal communication and group communication. These lessons warn against making generalizations about the effectiveness of a given approach or channel, and call the attentions of communication specialists and researchers to contextual factors.... [pps. 34-35]

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The above text was excerpted from "Communicating the Impact of Communication for Development: Recent Trends in Empirical Research" - World Bank Working Paper #120 - by Nobuya Inagaki. This issue of The Drum Beat focuses on Chapters 1-4, looking at theory, trends, and evidence. Part 3 of this Drum Beat series will focus on Chapters 5 and 6, looking at discussion of the trends and evidence and presenting conclusions. Part 1 of this series reviewed the 35 studies that served as background evidence for Mr. Inagaki's analysis; please click here for the archived version of that issue.

You may download a PDF version of the full study - click here.

You may download a plain text version of the full study - click here.

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DIALOGUE!

This issue of The Drum Beat will serve as the starting point for a discussion among the Drum Beat Chat network of this World Bank Working Paper (#120), "Communicating the Impact of Communication for Development: Recent Trends in Empirical Research" by Nobuya Inagaki.



Please register (if you are not already registered) and engage in dialogue, beginning June 10th, through the DrumBeatChat forum: click here for the archives. Register, and either participate online or send your contributions via email to drumbeatchat@comminit.com (you must be registered to participate). If connectivity is an issue for you, you may also send your contact information via email to the moderator, Deborah Heimann - dheimann@comminit.com - who can assist you with the registration process.

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This issue of The Drum Beat includes excerpts of a paper published by The World Bank. The views expressed herein are the perspective of the writer and are not necessarily reflective of the views or opinions of The Communication Initiative or any of The Communication Initiative Partners.

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The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.

Please send material for The Drum Beat to the Editor - Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com

To reproduce any portion of The Drum Beat, see our policy.